


Fade All Away

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys/Rambling Wrecks AUs [9]
Category: Glee, Rambling Wrecks
Genre: Homophobia, Implied Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Transphobia, Violence, implied eating disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:15:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where the school board votes no.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade All Away

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Homophobia/transphobia (external and internalized), violence (include homophobic, retaliatory and/or self-defense, and threatened), references to self-harm  & eating disorder
> 
> **Authors’ Notes:** The following story is an AU and not part of the SOTB/RW canon. **Please observe all warnings when deciding to read.** Extended warnings for Horrible Things week can be found [here](http://storyof3boys.livejournal.com/125422.html).
> 
>  
> 
> Not a new work. We're migrating the AUs away from the SOTB series and into their own, so we can get the odd tags and pairings off the SOTB series tags!

**Miles Brown — Senior year, 2012–2013**

It was a silly thing, putting faith in a bunch of middle-aged white men and one middle-aged white woman. The vote comes down to 2–3 against changing the wording of the policy, and if there’s one thing people in Lima do badly, it’s win gracefully. No, Lima, Ohio, has to kick a man when he’s down, and that’s just what they do, all the fine God-fearing folk and the queer-haters. It isn’t enough for them to win; they rub your faces in your losing.

The end of Miles’ junior year doesn’t go so badly, because everything’s still so polarized at the school, teachers and students all taking sides, and Figgins is probably afraid there’ll be a riot or more bloodshed in the hallways if he doesn’t at least make a token effort at fairness for the rest of the year. McKinley’s got a short memory, though, and by the time Miles’ senior year starts, people have mostly forgotten about sides, and most of them have forgotten about the school board fight in general. 

The administration hasn’t forgotten, though, and when the first incident happens just a week into Miles’ senior year, Figgins makes a big show of his hands being tied. Really, though, Miles thinks Figgins takes some degree of pleasure in telling Taylor there’s nothing he can do about all the slurs being written on his locker. The name-calling ramps up quickly after that, and the locker-checks are not far behind, and the ones doing the calling and the shoving learn fast which teachers go magically deaf when someone shouts ‘fag’ and which teachers will at least give them the stink-eye.

Miles had always thought of himself as being more or less out by the end of his junior year, but since he wasn’t in the habit of hooking up with guys at McKinley, apparently his reputation did not, in fact, precede him. A shove here or there, sure, but Miles realizes quickly that’s more about his involvement in PFLAG than it is about any sort of theories people might have about who he _likes_ to hook up with. He’d never really given much thought to it before, but suddenly, the ability to pass seems like something to be grateful for, especially once the recruiters start coming out to watch the football games. 

When the recruiter from Clemson asks about his extracurricular activities, Miles doesn’t mention PFLAG. In fact, when the recruiter mentions ‘that business with the school board last year’, Miles acts like he doesn’t know what the guy’s talking about. He tells Casey about it the next day when they’re driving out to the center, gets a little choked up about it, but Casey just says, “That’s just how it is,” like that settles it and there’s no point in discussing it any further. 

There’s not, really. Not any point in beating himself up about it, either, not when college is riding on it. Casey understands, and if some of the other kids in PFLAG sometimes look at him like he’s a traitor when he starts skipping meetings, that’s just how it is, just like Casey says. 

December rolls around, and Miles and Casey start hooking up like it’s a _thing_ , though as much as Miles wants it to be a _thing_ , it can’t be. Not in Lima, not anymore. Sometimes he wants to kiss Casey after a game, like some of the guys kiss their girlfriends, but that’s not something a Clemson prospect can do. If anything, they hang out less at school than they used to, putting it all into the after school time they spend together. Miles hates turning Casey into his dirty little secret, but that’s just the way of the world, and he’s got to get good at that world and the way it works.

Miles doesn’t want to blame himself for what happens with Casey, but maybe he should. It can’t feel good for Casey, the way Miles acts at school versus when they’re together alone, and even though Miles knows that’s not _all_ it is, not by far, he feels like it’s part of it. What he should probably do is walk away, stop it before he gets any deeper invested, but what really happens is that Miles holds Casey and cries, and tells him, “I’m sorry, Cherry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” 

When the school year is finally over, it’s such a relief to not be in that school anymore, always watching his back. Leaving for Clemson should make him feel free, but really all it does is make him worry about the people he’s leaving behind: Casey, Alicia and Rick, Taylor, those little PFLAG kids that he wishes he could have protected but didn’t have the balls to actually do anything about. In the end, Clemson feels like more of the same; Miles can’t help but think that McKinley did a damn fine job of preparing him for college in its own little way.

 

**Casey O’Brien — Senior year, 2013–2014**

School board elections take place during Casey’s senior year. Miles and Alicia’s Ma runs against the worst board member. Casey, Rick, Alicia, Taylor, and a few of Alicia’s Cheerio and glee club friends get together to make posters. They hand out fliers at the mall and downtown, and Shannon and Monty help, along with Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury-Schuester, the Browns, and Taylor’s parents. Rick’s parents don’t help, though, and from how Rick goes quiet when they talk about it, Casey suspects Rick’s parents aren’t voting for Miles and Alicia’s Ma.

Rick’s parents aren’t the only ones who don’t vote for Miles and Alicia’s Ma. She doesn’t win. “We’ll give it another go in two years,” she says, but that won’t help Casey, or Taylor, or any of the juniors or seniors. The new board’s worse than the one before them, and a few of the upperclassmen try to rally PFLAG for a second attempt at getting the policy changed and enforced, but this time it doesn’t even get past the PFLAG meeting. Why waste the time and energy on something doomed to failure?

It’s like a snowball rolling downhill after that. One of the new board’s first orders of business is to ban same-sex dates at prom, and since McKinley is the only prom within the Lima City School District, it’s obviously not anything but retaliatory. A group of parents complains about the PFLAG group, and suddenly their activities are being restricted more. It’s harder to get approval for fundraising or to reserve space for meetings. 

Casey manages to keep it together through swim season, but by spring break, he’s dropped ten pounds, and he’s added more than a few scars to the parts of his body that clothes can consistently hide. He has a growing pile of pamphlets and threats and notes that have been shoved into his locker and other people’s, in hopes that at some point, something will give, and he’ll at least have the paper trail to back himself up.

In early April, Casey gets jumped by two guys in the parking lot on the way to the Lemon after school. He ends up with a cast on his hand and two stitches in his eyebrow, but he’s out of the cast before prom, and the cut doesn’t scar too badly. Nothing’s done about the fight, because Casey doesn’t name names. He’d be a fool to name names with two more months left at McKinley, with how it’s getting worse there with every passing month. 

Enough parents complain and the school board’s same-sex prom date ban gets some national attention, and they do repeal it, but not in time for Casey’s prom. He goes as part of a group with Rick and Alicia, Taylor and some glee kids, and he doesn’t bring a date or dance with anyone. After that, it’s just a countdown to escape.

He holds on to the knowledge that he’ll be in Atlanta with David in just a few more months. He’ll do a better job of eating during the summer. He’ll throw away the lighters once the school year’s over. He’ll run from Lima so fast and so hard that it’ll be like he was never there at all. 

 

**Taylor Lange — Senior year, 2014–2015**

By senior year, Taylor has an illegal knife in his pocket and an illegal gun in his car, every time he goes to school. It doesn't matter to the asswipes at school that Taylor is taller than them, has more muscles than them, or is more confident in his masculinity than they'll ever be in theirs. All that matters to them is that he was born with an extra X chromosome, instead of the Y chromosome he was supposed to have, and that makes every day a war. 

Sometimes during sophomore year and the first part of his junior year, Taylor was afraid he was going to annoy Kurt with the steady stream of emails that he sent to New York. How, he wanted to know, had Kurt navigated it? Being out and being a target, every single day? 

Once, he must have sounded particularly desperate, because two minutes after the bell rang for the end of the day, his phone had rung, and Kurt had been on the other end of the line, and he just talked to Taylor for at least an hour. He'd listened to Taylor vent, he'd given a few suggestions, and he'd reminded Taylor to lean on the rest of PFLAG and especially his fellow glee club members. 

Glee club has probably saved Taylor's life ten times over just by the first day of senior year. Mr. Schue had enforced the choir room as a safe space, risking his own job, from what Taylor understands. They form groups whenever they're in the halls, and on the days when the verbal abuse just gets too hard to handle, Taylor can lose himself in the music and the rehearsals. It's work, hard work, perfecting the dancing and working out as a group. There's group vocal coaching sessions, group dance practice, and all of that on top of the rehearsals Schue convenes. 

The choir room is the only place on campus where Taylor can relax. 

Sophomore year was bad enough, with the locker vandalism and the tracts stuck through his locker vents. Junior year was a little bit worse, a little more physical and a few more explicit threats, when they realized they'd made it through an entire academic year without really ever being punished. That was when Taylor made the decision to start carrying the knife, carefully tucked in a pocket and never pulled out. Yet. 

The second week of Taylor's senior year, there's only four of them heading to class together. Taylor, Alicia, and two sophomores in glee club, one of them gay, the other just short and bubbly and the kind of girl Taylor'd like to get to know. The group of people approaching are all in lettermen's jackets, and Taylor suddenly realizes Alicia's Cheerios uniform isn't enough to protect them, not this time. There's at least six of them, all but one of them a match to Taylor in size. 

"Run," Taylor hisses at the girls, but Alicia stomps her foot and stands at his back instead. The other two do take off, in the direction of Schue's classroom, Taylor notes, and as the jackets approach, he knows this is the time to pull out the knife. 

If he's lucky, they'll be embarrassed to be beaten by the 'tranny', and he won't get in trouble. If he's not lucky, he'll have to toss it and hope he gets suspended, not expelled. 

Two cuts that draw blood are all it takes before the jackets take off running, and Taylor has just enough time to clean off the blade and tuck the knife away again before Schue comes running up. He walks all four of them to their classes, and when class is over, Schue's waiting at the door. 

"I hate to put it this way, Taylor, but at least it's your senior year."

"Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Schue." Taylor manages a half-hearted smile. "At least my afternoons aren't here on campus."

Schue's answering smile is sad. "Maybe next year the elections will turn out differently. Just keep letting us know what we can do."

"I will." Taylor nods and heads into the choir room, letting his guard down again, and listens to the buzz around him. He's probably not going to make it through senior year without a suspension or a serious injury, or possibly both. 

It's the end of January before he gets suspended. He cuts up three guys pretty bad, and he'd do it again. He was the only one there that was over sixteen, the only guy there, and the freshman girls in glee club, what they said they were going to do to those girls – Taylor couldn't let it stand. He manages to clean the knife, then shove it in Stacey's tampon wrappers before anyone notices, but the cuts are clear and obvious. In the absence of evidence, and no one admitting to actually seeing the knife, though, they can't expel him. 

It doesn't impact his application to Oberlin, thank god. It doesn't impact his performance at Regionals, and it doesn't impact his ability to travel to Nationals with the rest of the glee club. Schue fudges the details about their trip and buys them an entire week away, instead of just three and a half days. As soon as they hit the city, Taylor calls Kurt, and Kurt and Noah meet him for dinner. 

"You'll be able to let yourself relax eventually," Kurt promises him. "You'll always carry it, but you'll stop looking over your shoulder."

"There's a gun in my car," Taylor confesses. "And a knife in my pocket. Every day."

"And you'll stop feeling like you have to use them long before you actually don't keep them nearby," Noah says. "Oberlin, right? It's a good place. You'll be safe there."

"That's what I hope."

"You will." Kurt smiles at him. "And I expect an email about it."

Taylor grins. "Yeah, okay."

The two weeks after Nationals are long. Their win gives them a little protection, but Taylor remembers what the week away from it all felt like. The day after graduation, Taylor walks into the mall in Lima, and his knife is in his pocket. 

It takes six months before he stops checking for it. It takes another three months after that before he stops carrying it everywhere. It's a year after graduation before he can finally send Kurt that email, and he knows that when he heads back to Lima to visit, he'll carry it again. At least most of the year, now, he's free. Free to stop looking over his shoulder. Free to be himself without repercussion.


End file.
